Her eyes were looking down at the whipsword still coiled in her hand. “But Shinobu might. He’s never been as serious as he should be.”
“He’s saved my life several times,” Quin responded. “Those were serious enough to me.”
The words came out quietly and sounded far too personal to be sharing.
Mariko smiled unhappily. “Then maybe he’s grown up,” she said. “In any case, if you have a focal, you should know its proper use.”
She opened the lower doors of the cabinet and brought out a small slip of paper that had been folded several times. With a sense of ceremony, she handed it to Quin.
Quin carefully unfolded the delicate sheet to find a list written in a beautiful, foreign hand. It was the translation of the words inside the cabinet:
1. Be firm in body, in good health.
2. Clear your thoughts, begin from neutral mind.
3. Focus upon the subject at hand.
4. Place the helm upon your head.
5. Follow these rules faithfully, lest the focal become a havoc helm.
“I made the translation for a friend, many years ago, who had also come into possession of a focal,” Mariko explained.
“Who?”
“You have your secrets, Quin. Let me have mine. I don’t know what she used it for, just as I don’t know so many other things. But I can tell you that she was never the same again.” Her tone made it clear that the change in her friend hadn’t been for the better.
Quin looked back to the translated list. “Was that something to do with the words ‘havoc helm’? Do you know what that means?”
Mariko shook her head. “It’s been so long since my family had a focal, I wasn’t taught anything about it. But it’s safe to assume there is danger. My father always reminded me that he was sending me to train on the estate despite the danger.”
“Did he mean the danger of training? Or the danger of…your Seeker assignments after you took your oath?”
Mariko held up her whipsword, examining the craftsmanship of the inlaid handle, before putting the weapon back in its spot on the rack inside the cabinet.
“Maybe he meant the danger of training—the danger of tools like the whipsword or the focal—or maybe he meant the danger of assignments,” she said. She turned back to Quin. “But I think he also meant the other danger.” Mariko must have seen the confusion on Quin’s face, because she went on, “It’s not just athames that have been disappearing. Seekers themselves have been disappearing, Quin, for a long time, and no one could ever tell me why.” She was echoing what Catherine had written in the journal. “So…if you continue to be a Seeker, and if you choose to use the focal, please take care.”
The Hong Kong Transit Bridge spanned Victoria Harbor from Kowloon on the mainland to Hong Kong Island, and it was a world of its own. It was ten stories high and topped with a graceful canopy that resembled a mass of ship sails. From far away an observer might think the Bridge was actually a series of enormously tall ships crossing the harbor in a stately procession. To Quin it had always represented a new life, a life away from her father and Scotland, a life she could choose for herself. She and her mother lived in a house on the Bridge’s main thoroughfare, where Quin had worked as a healer since arriving almost two years before.
She entered the bridge now with Shinobu’s whipsword tucked beneath her jacket. As a resident, she was exempt from searches, and she passed through the security checkpoint with the weapon unnoticed.
It was still bright afternoon in Hong Kong, but the Bridge was always in twilight under its canopy, a condition Quin had come to think of as homey and comfortable. She wove through heavy foot traffic, which was illuminated predominantly by warm, yellow lanterns in the restaurants and outside the healing offices on the Bridge’s upper level.
Her own house was near the center of the Bridge, close to the home of her healing mentor, Master Tan. When she reached it, she slipped out of the crowds and through her front door, which closed behind her with a jingling of bells and shut out the noise of the Bridge. Fiona was in the waiting room of Quin’s healing office, tidying up with an air of having waited impatiently for some time.
“Hi, Mum. Is Shinobu upstairs?”
“Is he?” Fiona repeated. She set down a canister of herbs and pinned up her long red hair in